Gov. Susana Martinez announced Tuesday that the Motor Vehicle Division sent letters to 10,000 foreign nationals with state driver's licenses to request proof of residency. Letter recipients will have 30 days to contact the MVD and schedule an in-person appointment to verify their New Mexican address.

According to the guv's July 19 news release, there are about 85,000 foreign nationals with N.M. driver's licenses. The letters were sent to one-eighth of them, selected at random.

Martinez is seeking data on the percentage of driver’s licenses that have been issued to people from other countries who are no longer residents of New Mexico, according to the news release. If results indicate many licenses are held by nonresidents, the Tax and Revenue Division and the MVD will investigate the residency of more people.

Since passing a 2003 law, New Mexico is one of two states that allows drivers to obtain licenses without a Social Security number. The other state, Washington, permits residents to sign a declaration of their legal foreign worker status to obtain a license. Although Utah allows undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses, they cannot be used for identification purposes.

Since Martinez took office earlier this year she has fought to repeal policies that allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. Advocates of the practice argue that licensing is beneficial for public safety and the economy.

Guv-appointed commission yanks New Mexico’s support for wolf reintroduction

By Christie Chisholm

The state’s Game Commission voted unanimously to withdraw from the reintroduction effort. Gov. Susana Martinez appointed four new members to the six-member board in March. Bill Montoya is one of those new members. “It was costing us a lot of money,” says Montoya, who worked for the Game and Fish Department for 28 years. “We didn’t think we were going in the right direction.”

Greenhouse gas rules in New Mexico just can’t catch a break. After escaping Gov. Susana Martinez—and demise in the Legislature—they’re in the crosshairs of utility companies. The death-defying regulations have a singular goal: to reduce carbon emissions in the state.

Last weekend, demonstrators gathered to speak out against the cut. Alibi photographer William Rodwell was on hand to take photos.

After more than a decade of work, the center was launched mid-2007. After a series of smaller cuts, it was expecting about $379,000 in 2011 from the state to operate. The center hadn’t yet acquired much additional funding yet, so it may be out of luck in June when the money dries up.

The move is a slap in the face to African Americans, Wallace told the Alibi in an interview last week. “We can no longer sit around and accept it.”

Gov. Susana Martinez zeroed out funding for the African American Performing Arts Center and Exhibit Hall with a line-item veto on Friday, April 8. “We were very surprised,” says Joby Wallace, president of the center’s board of directors. “We had no idea this was going to happen.”

No one had come from the Governor’s Office to look at the programs, she says, and when the funding was dropped, no one called the center. “We had to read it in the paper like everyone else.”

It took about 12 years of diligent work and lobbying before the center opened its doors in June of 2007. It got a $379,000 yearly operating budget from the state, which Wallace points out, is the least that any museum receives. “We just started, so all our money was from the state.”

The center was home to performances as well as art and cultural exhibits. It also served as a meeting spot for a variety of African American groups and hosted several academic programs, including tutoring, reading, science and robotics, Wallace says.

Three employees may lose their jobs.

The move is a slap in the face to African Americans, she says. “We’re 3 percent of the state’s population, and we’re excluded from a lot of things. This is just another thing to add on and say, You don’t count. We can no longer sit around and accept it. We have to do everything we can to get her attention and let her [Martinez] know, we don’t like the way we’re being treated.”

The funding runs out in June, but the foundation has raised some money, and the center is going to try and stretch it as long as possible. Community members are going to ask Martinez to restore the funding at a budget hearing in September. In the meantime, they’re raising awareness with demonstrations.

Tomorrow at 11:30 a.m., protesters will gather at the corner of Central and San Pedro and march to the center at 310 San Pedro. Joining the march will be the Commission on the Status of Women, which also lost its state funding, labor unions, teachers and LULAC.

The demonstration is the first in a series. Wallace says they plan to also hold events in Hobbs and Alamogordo, and they’ve requested a meeting with the governor.

This column's name, Making Sausage, is a reference to a quote widely attributed to Otto von Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg. "Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made." From the view in the press box in Santa Fe, running a state looks arduous and frustrating. Lawmakers volley back and forth, nitpick over details, argue, dissect, and wheel and deal. And a 60-day session doesn't come cheap: lawmakers voted to spend a max of about $8.3 million on this one.